Wednesday

Apr 4, 2018 at 3:39 PMApr 4, 2018 at 3:44 PM

Slapping tariffs willy-nilly on products made in other countries is what we've come to expect from mercurial President Donald Trump, but he needs to understand that what goes around does tend to come around.

In response to Trump's growing list of tariffs on products made in China, that nation has retaliated in kind. Just ask a nearby Illinois soybean grower or pork producer who exports to China. Their businesses could be devastated by this rapidly escalating trade war.

There's another tariff that is greatly concerning to the newspaper business. It's a 32 percent tariff on Canadian newsprint — on which most American newspapers are published.

Here's the background: In 2017, North Pacific Paper Co. of Washington state complained to the Commerce Department that Canada was competing unfairly with the U.S. by subsidizing its paper industry and dumping cheap newsprint into the U.S. market.

North Pacific is owned by a New York hedge fund.

No other U.S. paper company complained, just North Pacific, also known as NORPAC. In fact, the American Forest and Paper Association, a trade group, takes a much more reasonable approach to trade on its website, saying, "We support the negotiation of trade agreements that result in commercial benefits for American companies by reducing tariffs and traditional non-tariff barriers."

Instead of negotiating, the Trump administration arbitrarily imposed this 32 percent tariff on all Canadian-made newsprint. It is temporary right now, but if it is made permanent the tariff will inevitably provoke the Canadians to retaliate.

And remember, Canada is our largest trading partner.

By raising the cost of Canadian newsprint by nearly one-third, this tariff will force newspapers in the U.S. to do several things, all of them bad for the industry and, ultimately, for the First Amendment. The Rockford Register Star is published on Canadian newsprint.

If the tariff is allowed to become permanent, newspapers will have do some or all of these things: raise prices, reduce publication days, reduce the daily page count, raise advertising rates, eliminate staff, including reporters, or convert to all-online operations.

Such a punishing tariff will cause some papers, particularly those in smaller communities, to go out of business. That means no more coverage of local schools, village and township governments, counties, high school sports, and social comings and goings.

What the tariff will not do is help the U.S. forest products industry. The newsprint market will continue to decline as more and more communities enforce recycling laws and newspapers increasingly promote online subscriptions. Younger readers tend to read the paper online.

The Trump administration has also imposed tariffs on Canadian lumber, which will raise the price of homes being built in the U.S.

There’s another, more sinister explanation for why Trump is imposing such a punishing tariff on Canadian newsprint — his disdain for news coverage he doesn’t like, which he calls "fake news."

He’s already launched a war on Jeff Bezos, who owns both Amazon and The Washington Post, a newspaper Trump hates with a passion because it has many reporters who dig deeply into the goings-on inside the president’s administration. The Post is fulfilling its First Amendment responsibilities, as newspapers tend to do. It’s part of our business model.

While kneecapping the press is something we see routinely in places run by autocrats such as Russia, Turkey and Iran, it’s not something anyone should tolerate in countries that abide by the rule of law.

Contact your representatives in Washington to urge them to rescind this punishing tariff. A healthy free press is crucial to a functioning democracy.